With development of Internet technologies, the Internet is applied more extensively. When a user accesses a network service using user equipment (UE), the UE establishes a network connection to a service server of the network service. In addition, a network element in a network stores a session corresponding to the UE, and sends charging information such as data traffic and online duration of the UE to a charging server. The charging server allocates session resources such as a processing resource and a memory resource to the UE to perform charging for the UE. The charging server may be an authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) server, or may be an online charging system (OCS) or an offline charging system (OFCS).
In a control and user plane separation (CUPS) network architecture, the charging server is connected only to a control plane function entity (CP). The CP has a charging usage threshold, and sends a usage reporting rule (URR) to a user plane function entity (UP) through an Sx interface. When traffic or duration accumulated on the UP reaches a threshold of the URR, the UP reports accumulated usage information to the CP. The CP generates a charging data record, and then reports the charging data record to the charging system. The charging system performs operations of charging and fee deduction on the user based on the reported charging data record, and generates a detailed charging record.
The URR may be set to different levels. The UP is not aware of the levels of the URR. The UP is only aware of whether the usage information on the UP reaches the threshold of the URR. If the threshold of the URR is reached, the UP reports usage information corresponding to the URR. If the threshold of the URR is not reached, the UP does not report usage information corresponding to the URR.
The UP determines, depending on whether the usage information reaches the threshold of the URR, whether to report the usage information. In some cases, the usage information reported by the UP may be incomplete, and therefore the CP cannot generate a complete charging data record and report the charging data record to the charging server.